The Inman family lived in a large sprawling property with few creature comforts. Their home had an outhouse for a bathroom, a propane stove for cooking along with a propane water heater, kerosene lanterns for lighting, and wood for heat. Aaron’s dad built the house off the electricity grid to be self-sufficient and keep his family debt free. The water line came from a dam in the creek that ran through the spruce, cedar and fir filled woodland behind the house. Winters can be brutal in Washington State with average temperatures as low as 20F in the Western Cascades. Huge winter storms – accompanied by gale force winds - roll in across the Pacific and can drop as little as 12 inches or as much as 12 feet of snow in a couple of hours. One year it was so cold that Aaron’s family burned 14 cords of wood. A cord of wood is equivalent to a woodpile 4 feet wide, 4 feet high and 8 feet long. That’s 128 cubic feet of wood that’s replaced fourteen times over!
Aaron grew to love the woods and lived for the outdoors. “If I wasn’t outside the door within 30 seconds of getting out of bed in the morning to breathe the fresh air I wasn’t happy,” he said. “I spent many days and nights in the woods alone and even met a bear in the dark when I was walking alone. I could hear and smell the bear but couldn’t see it.” Aaron is the epitome of the handsome, rugged, independent American outdoorsman. He’s quite literally done it all; camping, fishing, hunting and hiking. "I used to hike all the time, like every day. My favorite thing to do for quite a while was to find a lake without trails …and head out. Never did use a compass but rather GreenTrails maps and use the contours to find my way.” Aaron’s technical skills, coupled with his strong work ethic – he started delivering newspapers when he was ten years old – his calm self-assurance, determination and particularly his ability to think outside the box are traits displayed by countless entrepreneurs the world over. One such skill, picked up during Aaron’s service in the US Coast Guard, was learning how to tie knots and tarps in high winds. This proved invaluable when developing the Wallup! “I became a master of knots as a boatswains mate and became a tarp master,” said Aaron. “I actually improved a knot and the deck supervisor said it couldn’t be done that knots were being tied for a thousand years.”
In 1997, Aaron decided to get a group of buddies together for an annual fishing trip with a goal to break the Washington State trout record. “We took two boats and went to Banks Lake, WA and had complete privacy until a young couple put up a tent right next to us. I watched them get out of their tent the next morning and I had this vision of a wall…the next day we were playing cards and the wind blew the cards off the table.” These two “aha” moments resulted in Aaron’s first attempt at a privacy wall.
“The next year I brought conduit poles, a tarp, and some zip-ties and put a wall up. Although I had the idea of a free standing wall I didn’t know how to accomplish it so I tied it to a cable wire fence, the kind that has cement posts with a cable through it. The wind bent the poles all the way over by the next morning so I knew conduit wouldn’t work.”
Aaron went on to experiment with tent poles - not thick enough - plastic pipe – not strong enough – and rebar – too heavy – as well as fishing poles. For years he scoured the state buying every second hand tent he could find and cannibalizing the parts. But prototype after prototype simply didn’t deliver what Aaron was looking for. Over the years each successive prototype proved too weak, too flexible, too heavy or too rigid. Ultimately, Aaron had to fabricate his own stakes, determine which material – rayon, polyester, canvas or nylon - had the best tensile properties, experiment with both internal and external frames and then – after attaching hooks and clips - sew the finished product together and field test it (Aaron ultimately opted for 420D polyester). The current incarnation of the Wallup does not require the use of strings or other attachments and stays upright by using heavy duty 5/8” thick fiberglass reinforced poles and solid steel stakes. While Aaron guarantees that the Wallup will withstand winds of up to 15mph, the product can actually endure winds up to 50mph. That’s gale force for those not familiar with the Beaufort scale.
Aaron’s been developing the Wallup for over a decade and there’s no question that he knows his product, believes in his product and sells with enthusiasm. However, he’s also well aware that the mortality rate for small businesses is very high. Indeed, a study conducted by the US Bureau of the Census found that only 29% of new business ventures were still trading after a10 year period (1992-2002)[i]. In recognition of this fact Aaron’s always looked to increase his knowledge base, he met with “Inventing for Dummies” author Pamela Riddle Bird and he’s surrounded himself with a great professional team. Early in the development process he received help and guidance from the Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute (SIRTI) - a state agency created to help the economic development of Eastern Washington – got a crash course in intellectual property protection from Chris Lattin an attorney at renowned IP law firm Lee and Hayes and received help incorporating his business from the Gonzaga Law Clinic. He’s patent protected the Wallup, established an S- Corporation and selected Xiamen, China based MERI LLC as his manufacturing company.
This is an impressive track record for a small startup company, but the path to entrepreneurial success remains fraught with difficulty. “Unless a new venture develops into a new business and makes sure of being ‘managed,’ it will not survive no matter how brilliant the entrepreneurial idea, how much money it attracts, how good its products, nor even how great the demand for them” [Peter Drucker - Innovation & Entrepreneurship]. That being said, it’s hard to contend with a man who is so clearly focused on getting the job done. “I took a product with no product marketing experience and got into a large box store with many others ready to buy in 6 months because I get it done and the product rocks,” said Aaron who clearly realizes that pursuing the American Dream requires both grit and perseverance in equal measure.